


Push Comes To Shove

by chaote



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Helmstroll Sollux Captor, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Terrible Jokes, implied arasol if you Squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:48:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23275795
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaote/pseuds/chaote
Summary: “Stop…Stop trying to get me out of here.” His own voice haunts him, empty and mechanical. Something in his throat hurt. His mind felt stuffed with cotton. Coming to the conclusion that it was dry felt like pulling teeth. He wondered if he has teeth left to pull. More blood plinked to the cold metal floor when he pushed his tongue up to the roof of his mouth.---Helmsman Sollux with a smattering of self loathing, and solutions which may not be the best for everyone.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	Push Comes To Shove

Blood streamed out of Sollux’s mouth, and the laughter that croaked out of his throat echoed hollowly in the hall.

“Stop…Stop trying to get me out of here.” His own voice haunts him, empty and mechanical. Something in his throat hurt. His mind felt stuffed with cotton. Coming to the conclusion that it was dry felt like pulling teeth. He wondered if he has teeth left to pull. More blood plinked to the cold metal floor when he pushed his tongue up to the roof of his mouth.

At the ringing silence, he drew what little strength he had to his eyes, his face contorting with effort to focus. A blurry image of a frowning girl is processed. She has smooth horns that curl in a semi-circle, framing her face even more than her wild hair did. He knew her before. Knew her once.

He knew her.

Oh.

“If you’re done being depressing, let’s get you standing. You can’t afford to lose more blood.” Aradia whispers. Her mouth moves before he hears the words. The video feed shouldn’t be lagging with the technology they have. Her brow furrows deeper, and he realizes he probably said that out loud.

She slinks an arm around his torso. He wonders for a moment why he’s sitting up. Remembers her helping him sit was what led to the blood from his mouth. Where her hand touches his back feels wet. Her fingers brush against metal and Sollux goes rigid. There’s screaming in his mind, and everything feels cold. Aradia quickly brings her hand away and the screaming stops.

Another voice, deeper now, drifts in. Aradia turns to converse to whoever it is. Sollux lets his eyelids droop, listening to the voices meld together. None of their sounds made sense. He only caught snippets. “No anesthesia,” “too soon,” and “lucid”. Lucid was such a good word. Rolls right off his tongue. There was something…something hard about that word. The thought is too hard to keep in focus, and it slips away.

Sollux is half asleep when a finger snap gets his attention. It’s Aradia again. She should just let him sleep. “Hey. I don’t care if this hurts, I’m picking you up and you’re going to be quiet about it.” He nods and it takes all of him to keep his voice at a whimper when she picks him up. Pain lances up his body and his vision whites out. Pain is everything he is now, and it feels so familiar.

He sinks into it.

. . .

You highlight everything you wrote and delete it, sick to your. Well. You guess that’s probably not working anymore. You close out of that file, tuck the program deep into the parts of your mind that She can’t reach. You pull up the clock. You mentally sneer at yourself. 10 sweeps and all you do is write fantasy stories about being found, being cared about, by people who might well be dead. You are a piece of shit. You could find a way out of here if you tried. You have parts of your mind that She doesn’t know exists, and time to spare. Instead you gave up because you’re a fucking asshole and you deserve this, don’t you?

Even if someone came–anyone–you wouldn’t go willingly. If they were alive…if they came. If they cared. You wouldn’t want them to see you. Who would want to. Self-consciousness aside, you don’t know if your body works anymore. You check it sometimes from the cameras in the room. It doesn’t look great. You’ve been hanging out here for a while. Heh. Hanging.

It’s been too long for a rescue mission. They never looked for you. You would know. It shouldn’t hurt as much as it does, because there’s no way they would ever succeed. You would have had to watch them die. It still hurts that they never tried. The memory of them burns you like brands, but unlike the one She burnt into your flesh, it never heals.

You’re done, you think. You don’t want this anymore. You pull up that hidden folder and scroll through all the stories you saved. Not even the ones you discarded. There’s so many of them it disgusts you. Some of them are memories you wrote out. Your first time meeting Karkat. That time you spent with Aradia in a field somewhere that didn’t matter, and her smile made your soul softer. Others are you trying to remember the things She’s done. To keep you sane, keep you from falling for her tricks. You don’t want to remember, not really. Others are reunions, whether you escape or they rescue you. It exhausts you. All these words and it’s gotten you nowhere. You would say you’re suicidal, but you think sabotage might fit it better. It isn’t like you’re really alive.

Carefully, slowly, you embed bits and pieces of intent into each story. By the time you piece them together, it’s a sweep later. But oh, when you do. The sirens blare in your head, and it’s not minutes later that She storms into your block, fury on Her face. She ravages your mind, tries to back you into a corner. All you can do is laugh. You were always so heavy and this is the lightest you’ve felt in sweeps. She can’t stop it. You couldn’t even stop it if you tried. A sparkle of gold flashes in front of Her, and you momentarily lose all control of data flow. The lights flicker. You sluggishly focus a camera. Her culling fork is stuck through your eye, your throat, and your chest. Ah well. She’s still digging through your mind, trying to find a loophole. You decide to tell Her She may need some anger management if She survives this. You tell Her you won’t hold it against Her, that there’s a quote about setting your past on fire.

She doesn’t think it’s very funny. You. Well. You laugh yourself right into a sun.


End file.
